Dual hard drives

[belikemike]

I have 2 hard drives in my pc. One is xp pro, the other win 98.
I just switch ribbons & reboot to a HD. Both set on cable select. I would like to have them perminantly hooked up and when I start my pc, have a choice of which HD to boot into.Can anyone tell me how. I have no idea.

[DMR]

It can be done, but exact "how" of it depends on a couple of things:

Have both drives always been installed in the computer? If so, and you installed XP on the secondary drive while 98 was present on the primary drive, you might be most of the way there. If not, you can still do it, but it will just take a bit more configuration work.

[belikemike]

XP was loaded first. I then unplugged it and loaded WIN 98 an a 20 gig HD.
I just plug and unplug them as necessary. Maybe in this case they are both primaries.
XP just won't support some of the games my son and I like to play.
I await instructions from the pro's

[DMR]

In a dual drive or dual partition boot scenario with XP and an older version of Windows, the usual method is to install the older Windows on the first partition/drive and to then install XP on the second. That way, XP would automatically detect the existing Windows installation and configure the dual booting for you automatically.

Since each operating system was installed independently of the other in your case, XP is unaware of the 98 installation. This means that you'll have to do some manual configuration in order to have XP's boot loader give you the option of booting either OS.

The following is probably the easiest method, as it only requires adding one entry to the existing XP bootloader configuration file. If it doesn't work there are other ways to make it happen, but try this first:

1. Make the Windows XP drive the Primary Master drive (C:), and make the 98 drive the Primary Slave (D:). I would suggest not using Cable Select, but instead hard-setting the Master/Slave jumpers on each drive to their appropriate positions. Double-check your jumper settings and cable connections before you proceed.

2. Boot the computer; it should boot directly into XP.

3. The file you need to edit is C:\boot.ini, which is a hidden system file. In order to see the file and edit it:

- Open Windows Explorer, and in the Folder Options->View settings under the Tools menu, select "show hidden files and folders", and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and "Hide extentions for known file types".

- Locate boot.ini in your C:\ directory and double-click on it; that should open the file in Windows Notepad. The contents of the file will look very similar to:

[boot loader]
   timeout=3
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
   [operating systems]
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect

4. Edit the file by adding the entry "D:\="Windows 98" after the last existing line. The file will now look like:

[boot loader]
    timeout=3
    default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
    [operating systems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect
    D:\="Windows 98"

5. Save the file and reboot. On reboot, you should be presented with a menu where you can choose which version of Windows to boot into.

-> Note that you might want to increase the "timeout=" value in boot.ini. That entry tells the XP how long (in seconds) to display the boot menu before automatically booting into the OS specified in the "default=" line. The default value is only 3 or 5 seconds, so if you want to boot into 98 but take your attention away from the computer at that point, you'll miss your window of opportunity and the computer happily continue to boot into XP.

Give the above a try and let us know the results.

[cpopham]

Have you also considered running the games in XP in 98 mode? Right click the program and then click the properties, under compatibility you can select Windows 95, Windows 98 and others.

Chester

[belikemike]

Thank you all. Chester, your recomendation worked fine.
DMR, I would still like to hook both drives up. I unhid every folder and file and did several searches for boot.ini and found no results. I am running xp pro, not xp home if that makes a difference. Anything from this point on would be just for fun on my part.
I do appreciate everyones time and knowledge.

[DMR]

Have you also considered running the games in XP in 98 mode? Right click the program and then click the properties, under compatibility you can select Windows 95, Windows 98 and others.

Chester

That can definitely work with some older applications. It may not though, depending on the specific games in question, as "compatibilty mode" isn't the same as running the programs in the true native environment they were designed to run under. Worth a try maybe, I suppose.

[DMR]

I unhid every folder and file and did several searches for boot.ini and found no results. I am running xp pro...

That's weird. From what you've said so far, XP Pro was installed when there were no other drives/partitions/operating systems present. If that's really the case, boot.ini should be in your root (C:\) directory, along with the other XP boot files such as ntldr, bootsect.dos, ntdetect, etc.

[belikemike]

DRM, The boot.ini file was in the root dir. I'm not only blind, I also can't see.
I am going to follow your instr. and see if I can make it work. My win 98 hard drive
has a duel slave not a master slave. I will set it on dual s. Would the cd rom be set
as a master on it's own ribben. Master and slave HD s. set on ide 1 cd rom on 2

[DMR]

My win 98 hard drive has a duel slave not a master slave. I will set it on dual s.

I don't understand what you're trying to say there; there's no such thing as "dual slave" or "master slave". Do you mean Secondary Slave as opposed to Primary Slave, perhaps?

Would the cd rom be set as a master on it's own ribben. Master and slave HD s. set on ide 1 cd rom on 2

Yup- exactly.

[belikemike]

My slave HD is wd200eb. 10 pin, Forget the word dual. They used the word because they had jumper settings for 2 different hd's side by side. As I read farther down on the sight it's just Master,Slave and cable select. The other jumpers are for single drive
Standard and nuetral. I'm not familiar with a lot computer lingo but I can learn fairly quick. Here we go. Thanks!

[belikemike]

DMR. Here's what happens. The computer boots up, asks to boot into xp or 98.
when I chose 98 it reboots into the same screen and givs the same option.
It goes into xp fine. We must be close. My cd rom is my D drive. should my
slave HD be an E drive?

[DMR]

Hang in there- I've read your latest posts, but I have to log off for the night now.

I've flagged this thread for follow-up, so I'll try to respond as soon as possible tomorrow.

[belikemike]

DMR no hurry, It's my extra computer. I remember something very very old.
Is it possible to have the computer boot into dos mode, create 2 bat files, each one
giving its own path. One to the xp boot file and one to the 98 boot file. I remember
when I was young, before win. 3.1 no mouse. I would create my own menu in a text
file. create bat. files to run programs and name them 1.bat 2.bat ....
A farfetched idea?

[DMR]

I remember when I was young, before win. 3.1 no mouse. I would create my own menu in a text file. create bat. files to run programs and name them 1.bat 2.bat ....
A farfetched idea?

lol! I forgot about that; I did the same sorts of things back then as well. I remember how cool it was when I discovered Norton's NDOS, because it was so much more flexible and powerful than MS-DOS in terms of the bat files, scripts, and menus I could create with it.
Sure- it's all dinosaur stuff now, but when you're running DOS 3.3, DOS 5.0, and Win 3.1 on a 286 with a 10M hard drive, maybe 16M RAM, and a couple of 5.25" floppy drives... :mrgreen:

Sorry to say it though, but that doesn't work anymore. There's no such thing as "real" DOS underneath the hood of modern versions of Windows, and the boot processs is much more advanced and complicated that it was in those days.

You say that your CD-ROM shows up as the "D:" drive, but that shouldn't be the case if your second hard drive is configured correctly and Windows is following its usual drive/partition naming convention.. In your case, Windows should assign drive letters as follows:

C: = the Primary partition on the Primary Master drive (where Win XP lives). From what you've said about your configuration, in your case the primary partition is the only partiton on that drive.

D: = the Primary partition on the Primary Slave drive (where Win 95 lives). Again- from what you've said, this should be the only partition on that drive.

E: = the CD-ROM drive installed as the Secondary Master drive.

Boot into XP and do the following:

- Right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and choose the "Manage" option in the resulting context menu.

- Once the Computer Management window opens, click on the "+" sign at the left of the Storage category to expand it, and then click on the Disk Management option.

- After a short scan of your system, a summary of all of the drives that XP detects will appear in the right-hand pane of the Computer Management window. Tell us what identifying information XP reports for those devices.

[Thong_Ispector]

To do this quick..
Get a copy of lilo or grub bootloaders

If you dont have much customization of your XP setup, make the 98 your C drive and reinstall XP

I read through and didnt see anything about verifying that your cables are cable select.

Since you have two hard drives and a CD or DVD you cant use standard cables...

[belikemike]

It is as you say. I tried to edit earlier thread to tell you, but failed. My win 98 is D:
My bios detects it properly. Would it be easier to perhaps do it a different way? Can 2 os. be loaded at the same time and work properly. Could they be
on the same HD?

[Thong_Ispector]

Two OS can be on your drives at the same time, they can even share a drive (with exceptions) but they cannot be loaded (Running) at the same time...
(Again, exceptions like running 98 inside Linux)

I see several solutions to your problem in these posts.

Pick one and go for it...

Get a bootloader, lilo, grub or other...

or

Switch cables so that 98 is your C drive and reinstall XP

or

Make a 98 boot disk that will run 98 on drive D

or

Change boot drive sequence in cmos/bios when you want to switch OS

[DMR]

Two OS can be on your drives at the same time, they can even share a drive (with exceptions) but they cannot be loaded (Running) at the same time...

Right. Two OSes can be installed on the same drive, but you can only be booted into one at a time. The exception would be running one OS from within another by using third-party software such as VMware or WINE.

Get a bootloader, lilo, grub or other...

Grub is your friend... :D

Switch cables so that 98 is your C drive and reinstall XP

Yes, and if you're careful, you won't even have to reinstall XP entirely.
The key thing to know is that even when XP is installed on a second drive or partition, it still needs to install some of its boot files on the C: drive/partition. Because you installed XP and 98 separately, XP didn't copy the boot files to the 98 partition, so as the system stands right now, you won't be able to boot XP or set up dual-booting.

The trick is to force XP into making the necessary modifications to C: by running the XP installation again and telling it to install to the C: drive (where 98 lives). However, instead of running the full installation, you only let it go through the first part of the install where it copies the initial setup files to the drive. This will put the missing boot files onto the C: drive. After that you have to make a minor edit in your C:\boot.ini file to point XP's bootloader to the real XP installation on the D: drive, and the system should be set to dual boot:

!!Back up any critical data before proceeding!!

1. Switch the drives: make the 98 drive the Primary Master (C:) and the XP the Primary Slave. Make sure you correctly reconfigure the Master/Slave jumpers on the drives.

2. Boot the system from the XP installation CD and let the installation process begin.

3. When you get to the point where you can choose the partition on which to install XP, choose C:. Make sure the installer is not pointing to your current XP installation on D:!

4. Let the installation continue through the phase where it tells you something like "Setup is copying the necessary files".

5. The system will want to reboot after that to finish the installation. This is the important part: You do not want to let the system reboot into XP and complete the installation. Instead, pay close attention to the reboot process and choose to boot into Win 98 when it asks which operating system it should boot!! If you don't catch it quickly enough, the installer will automatically continue into the completion of the new XP setup. That would be a Bad Thing.

6. Once booted into 98, locate the C:\boot.ini file and open it in Notepad. The current file will look something like this:
(ignore the funky line/paragraph formatting in the code boxes below; it's just a glitch with the CODE tags)

[Boot Loader]
           Timeout=5
    Default=C:\$WIN_NT$. BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
           [Operating Systems]
           C:\$WIN_NT$. BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Setup"
           C:\="Microsoft Windows"

You want to edit the file to this:

[Boot Loader]
           Timeout=15
    Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\windows="Microsoft Windows XP"
           [Operating Systems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\windows="Microsoft Windows XP"
           C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"

Save the file and reboot; you should then get a boot menu allowing you to choose between 98 and XP. Note that with the "Default=" line in boot.ini set as above, XP will be the default OS that the system will automatically boot into after the 15 second delay specified in the "Timeout=" line.

[belikemike]

I think I understand all of this. Many thanks to DMR and Thong Inspector.
I will let you know how things work out.

[DMR]

OK, keep us posted.

Also- don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions along the way. Partition manipulation is pretty low-level stuff, and one mistake can wipe out everything on the drive...

[belikemike]

OK hears what happened. I began loading xp on c: win 98.
when it asked me if I to create a new folder or write onto or over the existing folder I chose to write onto the existing folder. I think I blew it! When it rebooted it never asked which OS to boot into. I will reinstall 98 on C: And try the other route unless you feel thats usless. Curious.

[Rthlss]

I have learned much readin this post. Let me throw a curve at ya.
So what if u have 2 HHD's both running XP and u want to put them on the same system? Both have drivers for the system and will boot at anytime. Just never tried to run 2. She wants to be able to access stuff on both drives, maybe even transfer, can this be done?

[Catweazle]

Rthless, put the second drive in the system and ensure it is correctly configured as a secondary drive. Then perform a Refresh Install of Windows XP on the second drive and the multi-boot structure should be created for you. Make sure you choose to install to the partition where your additional installation of XP currently resides.

[DMR]

Hi Rthlss,

In the future, please start your own thread for your questions as opposed to tagging them on to another member's thread. Adhering to our "one member's question(s) per post" guideline helps keep the threads more organized and easy to follow.

As a new member, you should read our full Posting Rules to familiarize yourself with our particular policies and guidelines.

Thanks. :)

[anurag_pareek]

i just cant get u dear

[anurag_pareek]

hey how can i become super mod or something like that dmr

[DMR]

hey how can i become super mod or something like that dmr

lol.

Easy:

Spend every single second of your free time helping people on tech support forums. Do this for a few years. Eventually, a forum administrator will recognize that you really know your stuff and that you're really helpful to other members. They will then ask you to take on even more responsibility by becoming a moderator. Because you already spend all of your free time helping out, you then have to quit your job, kick everyone else out of your house, and accept the offer to Moderate.

:mrgreen::mrgreen:

[Coconut Monkey]

Because you already spend all of your free time helping out, you then have to quit your job, kick everyone else out of your house, and accept the offer to Moderate.

:mrgreen::mrgreen:

It's so true!
:cry:

[Nickair]

Hi i am in a similar issue as above. I have 2 hard drives connected in my computer. My C drive is a 6 GB, and My D drive is an 8 GB. What i want to know is if there is a way to share storage between each of these, because when ever i want to install something i am always given a running low on disk space alert message. I am pretty computer literate but am no pro. I am running Windows XP on my computer. Can anyone help me?